Archive for the ‘WAR’ Category

True, he doesn’t seem a bit like Lyndon Johnson, but the way he’s headed on Afghanistan, Barack Obama is threatened with a quagmire that could bog down his presidency. LBJ also had a progressive agenda in mind, beginning with his war on poverty, but it was soon overwhelmed by the cost and divisiveness engendered by a meaningless, and seemingly endless, war in Vietnam.

Meaningless is the right term for the Afghanistan war, too, because our bloody attempt to conquer this foreign land has nothing to do with its stated purpose of enhancing our national security. Just as the government of Vietnam was never a puppet of Communist China or the Soviet Union, the Taliban is not a surrogate for al-Qaida. Involved in both instances was an American intrusion into a civil war whose passions and parameters we never fully grasped and could not control militarily.

The Vietnamese Communists were not an extension of an inevitably hostile, unified international communist enemy, as evidenced by the fact that Communist Vietnam and Communist China are both our close trading partners today. Nor should the Taliban be considered simply an extension of a Mideast-based al-Qaida movement, whose operatives the U.S. recruited in the first place to go to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.

Those recruits included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attack, and financier Osama bin Laden, who met in Afghanistan as part of a force that Ronald Reagan glorified as “freedom fighters.” As blowback from that bizarre, mismanaged CIA intervention, the Taliban came to power and formed a temporary alliance with the better-financed foreign Arab fighters still on the scene.

There is no serious evidence that the Taliban instigated the 9/11 attacks or even knew about them in advance. Taliban members were not agents of al-Qaida; on the contrary, the only three governments that financed and diplomatically recognized the Taliban—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan—all were targets of bin Laden’s group. READ MORE

(Newser Summary) – Travel between North and South Korea returned to normal today, eight months after Pyongyang clamped down on imports from the South. It’s the latest sign of warming ties between the two Koreas, following a recent deal on reuniting separating families and the fight high-level diplomatic talks in two years. Negotiations last month between North Korea and South Korean automaker Hyundai led to the changes, reports CNN.

(Newser Summary) – The US military’s strategy in Afghanistan is failing, Gen. Stanley McChrystal will tell commanders in Washington today. A copy of the US commander’s remarks leaked to the BBC compares the military to a bull charging at a matador—losing strength with each individual cut. McChrystal’s report says Afghans are suffering a crisis of confidence, since their lives have not improved since 2001.

The long-awaited report says that Afghan military forces will not be ready to take the lead in peacekeeping for at least three years, and training police will take even longer. McChrystal also says the US should engage more with Taliban insurgents, estimating a 60% reduction in violence if they were found jobs. The report stops short of asking for more troops, but increased troop levels are implied—and may be made explicit in a second report to come.

Source: ABC (ABC?! I know I’m getting desperate! But it’s a good read hehe, Original credit goes to AP)

The U.S. military is packing up to leave Iraq in what has been deemed the largest movement of manpower and equipment in modern military history — shipping out more than 1.5 million pieces of equipment from tanks to antennas along with a force the size of a small city.

The massive operation already under way a year ahead of the Aug. 31, 2010 deadline to remove all U.S. combat troops from Iraq shows the U.S. military has picked up the pace of a planned exit from Iraq that could cost billions.

The goal is to withdraw tens of thousands of troops and about 60 percent of equipment out of Iraq by the end of next March, Brig. Gen. Heidi Brown, a deputy commander charged with overseeing the withdrawal, told The Associated Press in one of the first detailed accounts of how the U.S. military plans to leave Iraq.

Convoys carrying everything from armored trucks to radios have been rolling near daily through southern Iraq to Kuwait and the western desert to Jordan since President Barack Obama announced the deadline to remove combat troops, leaving up to 50,000 troops under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement until the end of 2011.

First out, Brown said, will be the early withdrawal of an Army combat brigade of about 5,000. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said a brigade would leave by the end of the year, months ahead of schedule, if violence in Iraq did not escalate beyond current levels.

That will be followed by the Marine Corps, which has already shipped out about half of its 22,000 troops and more than 50 percent of its equipment since May.

GORDON BROWN yesterday prepared the ground for a pre-election announcement of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan next year.

During a lightning visit to the front line in Helmand province, the prime minister announced plans to double a training programme for the Afghan army to reduce its reliance on British and American troops.

“Stepping that up means the Afghans themselves take responsibility for their own affairs,” Brown said.

He also hinted that there could be a temporary increase in UK troops to support and mentor local forces, with government sources suggesting that Taliban fighters could even be granted an “amnesty” in the effort to bring the conflict to a close.

The announcement will be interpreted by opposition politicians as an attempt to lay the groundwork for a highprofile commitment next year to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.

Although there is little sign that the war is being won, with this month’s democratic elections blighted by low turn-out and claims of corruption, Brown is under intense pressure to enter the general election campaign in a position to say the mission in Afghanistan is reaching its conclusion.

During yesterday’s trip, he did not specifically refer to an exit strategy or timetable for withdrawal, but moves to train more local forces would pave the way for British troops to be sent home.

It follows a bloody summer during which the number of British service personnel killed in Afghanistan has risen to 208, prompting mounting public hostility to the conflict. Recent opinion polls suggest that two in three British voters believe that UK forces should withdraw from the region. Read More

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests.

Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: “This is the strongest evidence yet that the British government has been involved for a long time in talks over al-Megrahi in which commercial considerations have been central to their thinking.”

Two letters dated five months apart show that Straw initially intended to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, under which British and Libyan prisoners could serve out their sentences in their home country.

In a letter dated July 26, 2007, Straw said he favoured an option to leave out Megrahi by stipulating that any prisoners convicted before a specified date would not be considered for transfer.

Downing Street had also said Megrahi would not be included under the agreement.

Straw then switched his position as Libya used its deal with BP as a bargaining chip to insist the Lockerbie bomber was included.

The exploration deal for oil and gas, potentially worth up to £15 billion, was announced in May 2007. Six months later the agreement was still waiting to be ratified. Read More

British and American soldiers to shoulder brunt of surge’s next phase
by Kim Sangupta

The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan will ask for 20,000 more international troops as part of his new strategic plan for the alliance’s war against a resurgent Taliban, The Independent has learned.

British troops in Helmand province recently. Last month was the deadliest for UK forces since the Falklands war. (Photo: The Independent).The demand from General Stanley McChrystal will almost certainly lead to more British soldiers being sent to the increasingly treacherous battlegrounds of Helmand, the Taliban heartland, despite growing opposition to the war.

General McChrystal, tasked with turning the tide in the battle against the insurgency on the ground, has given a presentation of his draft report to senior Afghan government figures in which he also proposes raising the size of the Afghan army and police force. Read More

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